In The End
by Julia456
Summary: She doesn't want to consider all the things that it means, but her first feeling is relief. 'Returns'.
1. The End

Notes: This is a rewrite of the final scene in _Superman Returns_. It has nothing to do with my story "Sunday Fathers", but heck, go read that anyway.

Many thanks to Barb for the inspiration - and, of course, for all of her kind words. :)

* * *

The words won't come.

The title is there, but the words of the story won't come.

She stares at the screen, fingers brushing the keys, frustrated and overwhelmed and above all sad - sad for reasons she can't and won't pin down and think about. But she knows, even without analysis, that she can't write this story.

The world needs Superman, yes. If ever that had been doubted, recent events have proven it manifestly true all over again. For her, though, it's no longer what the world needs. This story isn't about what the world needs. It's about what she needs, what her son needs. _Who_ he needs.

Jason will - There are things - There are life experiences that only -

_Jesus_. She pulls her hands away from the computer and swipes at a tear. This is ridiculous. This is not a goddamn soap opera. She's a reporter - a Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter, dammit; nevermind what she won for - and she's the mother of a child who's been a medical rollercoaster for all five years of his life, and she should not be crying just because her son is half-alien and his father is in a coma.

_Oh hell,_ she thinks, more tears welling up in her throat. _It __is__ a soap opera._

She gives up on the story and thinks about going outside for a smoke. But what she really wants is a way out from under this colossal mess, and no amount of nicotine can turn back time or fix broken hearts.

Instead she gets up, slings on a robe, and quietly climbs the stairs to check on her baby. His door is shut; the fingerpainted blob of a picture ("It's an elephant, Mommy!" he'd explained) hanging proudly on display looks ghostly in the dim light. She eases the door open and has an instant's clutch of cold fear -

- until she realizes the man standing over Jason's bed is wearing a red cape.

Which means... She doesn't want to consider all the things that it means, but her first feeling is relief. Her grip on the doorknob tightens reflexively.

Superman turns his head and looks at her, then glances back down at Jason's sleeping face. He looks, she thinks, happier than she can ever remember seeing him. Certainly happier than he's been since he's returned.

She hesitates for a moment before opening the door wider and stepping back into the hallway. He takes the gesture for what it is - an invitation - and follows her. Of course he shuts the door politely and carefully behind them.

"I didn't know," she starts, hushed for Jason's benefit, then falls silent under the weight of all the things she could use to finish that sentence. In the shadows, having him here alive and breathing seems almost dreamlike. Wonderful, but unreal. She stares at him, superstitiously afraid to look away.

"I know," he says, gently, warmly. He's being quiet, he's keeping a courteous distance, but joy flashes and dances behind his blue eyes.

She pulls her robe closer and thinks that at least _someone_ has had good news out of this disaster. She tries to sound casual. "So you heard - when I came to the hospital?"

He shakes his head, rueful. "No. I thought you'd be at the Planet - I talked to Richard."

Pain twists through her chest, and shame, too, remembering the hardest conversation of her life: the one last night, where she had to tell Richard that his son wasn't, that their frail little baby boy had shoved a piano across the room with a flick of effort. It had been a long time since she cried herself to an uneasy sleep. She hopes not to repeat it anytime soon.

"I had to tell him," she says, feeling guilty all over again. As though she had confessed a sin to her fiancé, and was confessing another one now. "I wanted... to be the one to tell you."

"I know," he says again, no judgment or reproach. And there it is, the sin absolved, the mistake redeemed. The amount of forgiveness in this man amazes her. He looks at her with a carefully neutral expression. "Richard is a good father."

She starts to say something, changes her mind, bites down on her lip and walks downstairs. He stays behind her, boots soft on the carpet, red cape rustling slightly with each movement. She puts on a light and looks at him properly.

He looks good. He looks like himself, so strong and so confident that he's - No, not that he's _modest_ about it; just that he doesn't _notice_ it. He stands in her house and gives no indication that he's anything but a courteous man with a nice physique and a spandex fetish that shows it off.

You would never guess that here was someone who could pick up an island and throw it halfway to Jupiter - and to do it as it slowly, agonizingly killed him.

"I'm glad you're all right," she says past a sudden lump in her throat. "When I - when I heard it was going to be kryptonite... And then you didn't wake up."

"I'm fine now, Lois," he says, smiling at her. Warm and gentle: the sun breaking through after five years' worth of bleak, gray winter. "Thanks to you. Thanks to Jason."

It's too much. She still loves him so badly; it hurts too much. She blinks, looks away, and changes the subject. "Will he be safe?"

He nods. "I'll protect him."

"Good," she says.

He moves closer to her and says, "I would have protected him anyway. You know that."

"Because he's my son," she says. It's not a question.

"The last thing I ever want is for you to be hurt, Lois," he says, coming closer by another few steps. The courteous distance has vanished. Now he's near enough that she can feel, very faintly, the warmth radiating off of him.

"Then why did you leave?" she asks, frustrated and sad. And this time, she asks it the way she always wanted to: like someone with a damned broken heart.

He takes her hands in his and cradles them. The solid rough heat of his touch sinks into her fingers and seems to spread upwards, melting her resistance as it goes along. She should pull away. She knows she should. This is why she's in such an ungodly mess and it's sure as hell not going to help matters with Richard.

Instead she moves in closer. Tilts her face up, seeking the sun.

"You know I had to go," he says, gravely serious now. "To spend your whole life thinking you're alone, and then to find out it might not be true... I couldn't stay. But I should've said goodbye. I should've told you the truth, about who I really am. You deserved it then - and even more so now."

She has to swallow a few times before she can put up a weak smile. "Damn right I do," she says, and hates that her voice wobbles.

His hands tighten around hers. "It's going to hurt," he says, a flicker of - anxiety? fear? - crossing his face. "This... will change things. You may not want to know."

It _is_ fear, and her heart jumps up into her throat wondering what could possibly be so bad as to intimidate the Man of Steel. She thinks, with a touch of dark humor, _Whatever it is, it can't be any worse than discovering Jason's peanut allergy the hard way._

_It can't be any worse than five years._

"I can take it," she says. Her voice stays clear and steady.

He looks her in the eye and holds the gaze for a long moment, long enough to make her think that no, he's not going to tell her anything after all. Then he leans down and brushes a kiss across the center of her forehead. It raises gooseflesh on every inch of her skin and makes her close her eyes.

"I'm sorry I broke your picture frame," he says, very softly, and the warm exhale of his breath on her face kindles a fire across her nerves. Then the sense of the words sinks in and breaks the spell.

Lois leans back, blinking and confused. Because Jimmy said that Clark had -

- that it was Clark who -

She has a flash of Richard's voice: _How tall would you say Clark is?_

Clark who was gone for five years. Clark who reappeared the same day Superman caught that wayward shuttle launch. Clark who broke the picture on her desk.

She looks at the man standing before her, still holding her hands - looks at those lovely bright blue eyes and the black hair and the gentle smile and _sees_ them, this time.

This is not helping her sensation of being overwhelmed. She feels a little dizzy, like she might faint, and tells herself to wait until after she kicks his ass.

"Oh," she says.

"Hello, Lois," he says.


	2. Before

Note: If all goes according to plan, there'll be a third part to this. But we'll see.

* * *

The numbers don't add up.

He has a million other things to be worrying about, Richard White knows, but he's stuck on these damn numbers.

He slumps back in his chair, tossing the pen onto his desk, and scrubs his hands over his face.

Does it matter, anyway, how long Lois' pregnancy lasted? Nine months, twelve months, three years - Jason's still not his. Obsessing over dates and timelines won't change the facts, and the facts are that his son - _the kid I love __as a son__, get used to that_ - shoved a piano across a room without so much as a grunt.

It's driving him crazy, though. He glowers at the fading late-night bustle of the Planet's bullpen, not seeing it, and walks through the timeline again.

Superman disappears; two, maybe three months later, Richard risks a black eye and kisses Lois. Things move fast from there: a month and a half later, tops, she's telling him she's pregnant and he's pressing a ring onto her finger.

Not because of the baby. Because he wanted to marry her, dammit. _Wants_ to marry her.

And five years later, here he sits, brooding in his office, and he doesn't have the wife or the son.

Just yesterday he thought drowning at sea was the worst that could happen. The more fool him.

Rock bottom.

If he hasn't hit it, he's missing a golden opportunity.

Someone's phone rings, loud and shrill, and it's answered with a booming laugh. The noise cuts across his nerves and he suddenly can't stand to be here, surrounded by all of these people who have no idea that his world has fallen out from under him.

He pushes the chair back and stalks out of his office without a destination in mind. Somehow he finds himself at the elevator, punching the "up" button, leaning back against the classy Deco paneling and remembering the first time he met Lois. Then remembering her the night before, crying her eyes out as she told him the truth.

Betrayal is an unreasonable feeling, he knows. He was never betrayed; this began and ended before he ever came into the picture. He knew she was "Superman's girl" when he kissed her - knew he might end up as the rebound guy, spent five years telling himself he wasn't.

But he was never betrayed. Lois never lied to him about Jason; she never hid the truth from him; she made a point of telling him as soon as she found out herself.

He hasn't been betrayed.

It just feels that way.

Out on the roof - of course he ends up on the roof - it's colder than it was at street level, and he left his suit jacket hanging in his office, but he doesn't mind the chill. The wind flaps his tie around until he takes it off and stuffs it into the pocket of his pants.

He goes to the edge of the roof and looks down. Metropolis spreads out below him in a maze of concrete towers and light-polluted night, beautiful and somehow empty despite all the people. Maybe it's just him. He's been sleepwalking through his day: holding it all back by shutting it all down. Trying his best to _be there_ for Lois and Jason even though he mostly wants to grab his son into a hug and yell at her. Driving Lois to the _hospital_, for God's sake, so she could take Jason to cry at Superman's bedside.

Knowing, through everything, that he's lost the war. Knowing that he never even really got on the battlefield to start with.

"Good evening, Mr. White," a voice says behind him.

Richard turns, surprised (but not very, in the grand scheme of things), and watches Superman touch down on the Planet building. A few days ago, he would've greeted the hero with a joke about being back with the living. Something designed to show his confidence in his life. Now -

"Lois isn't here," Richard says, skipping the pleasantries. He folds his arms across his chest and does his best to forget that Superman saved his family less than three days ago. "She's at home with Jason."

"I understand," Superman says. And damn him, he looks like he does. "How is she? And your son?"

Richard glances down, rubs at his eyes, and tries not to let the bitter smile on his face leak into his voice. "Fine." He looks back up. "They're fine."

Superman nods. "Thank you," he says, apparently sensing Richard's thousand subtle signals that this is a bad moment and an even worse line of inquiry. "I won't take up any more of your time, Mr. White."

He turns to leave and Richard is strongly tempted not to tell him - to let him go on in ignorance that the heart and soul of Richard's world now belongs, at least in part, to him as well.

Richard loves Jason, loves all the million small miracles that his son is and was and will be. Fiercely, proudly, helplessly loves his son. Is it wrong that he doesn't want to share? Or is it only human?

But Lois will just tell Superman the next time she sees him, regardless. And right now, Richard is heartbroken and jealous and angry enough - at his fiancee, at the hero in front of him, at the entire unjust universe - that he wants most of all to steal this moment of revelation away from her.

"He's your son," Richard abruptly calls out.

Superman goes still. The red cape flutters - the only motion for a painful moment - and Richard feels a flash of triumph for shocking the Man of Steel. Superman half-turns to stare at him. "That's... Are you sure?"

"Lois told me," Richard says, getting angrier with each word, "that on Luthor's ship, one of his thugs attacked her - was about to kill her, when he got hit with the piano. She said that Jason pushed it." He stares Superman down, daring the other man to contradict him, so furious he almost takes a swing at him even though he knows it'd equal a broken hand. "So I'd say we're pretty goddamn sure."

Silence hangs over the rooftop, broken only by the wind and the muffled city noises rising up from the world beneath them.

Superman says, "I'm sorry."

True regret laces the words - Richard can hear it even through the red sheen of his anger.

_So am I_, he thinks. The fury drops away without warning, leaving him tired and wounded and nearly crushed beneath the weight of guilt. He wishes he'd kept his mouth shut after all; it'll kill Lois that Superman found out somewhere else. "Yeah."

Superman's attention shifts away, toward some far horizon regular people probably can't imagine, and then returns to Richard with a sudden intense focus. But his voice remains low and respectful: "I won't take up any more of your time, Mr. White."

"I wish," Richard says, watching him fly off into the night. Then he pushes his hands through his hair and kicks at the parapet with a curse that he pretends Superman won't hear.

Richard plus Lois plus Jason.

Plus Superman.

It doesn't add up the way it should.


	3. After

"I can pay for it," Clark says, reaching for the check, but his mother is faster.

Martha_ tsks_ at him and pulls out her pocketbook, saying, "No, no. Not on your life. If I can't make you breakfast, I can at least buy it for you."

He smiles and lets her, knowing that he can't win the argument, and also knowing that he'll slip money into her purse when she's not watching. He hates to see her spend any more on him - farmers are the heart of America, but that doesn't mean they can afford to hop flights to Metropolis on short notice.

"I'm sorry you had to come all this way," he says. Behind him, someone comes into the diner, making the little bell over the door jingle before they elbow into the growing crowd perched at the counter. It's still dark outside, but the city is shaking off the night's drowsiness, ready to spill life out of its buildings and back into the streets.

He feels like that himself: like he's been asleep and now blinks into the dazzling noontime sun. Happy, but overwhelmed just the same.

_He's your son._

_Hello, Lois._

It was the right thing to do, telling Lois. But he wonders now if it wasn't a selfish act as well, or at least an ill-timed one - handing her another burden when she already had so many.

"I'm just glad you're all right," Martha says, squeezing his hand across the table. "When I saw the news - oh, I nearly fainted. And then the truck wouldn't start. Thank God for Ben, or I'd never have gotten to the airport on time." She gives his hand a final squeeze, a pat, then releases it. "The doctors got it all out? You're sure?" she asks in a hushed voice.

Clark says, "I'm sure, Ma. I'm fine."

She exhales and there are sudden tears glinting at the corners of her eyes. "Good."

His mother leaves the check and he leaves a decent tip for the waitress, and they exit the diner to walk along the street. He takes her arm in his and smiles at way she holds on to him - as if she's afraid he'll run out into traffic.

Or fly away.

They meander along the sidewalks together, heading nowhere in particular. Martha tells him about how the church is raising money for a new air conditioner since the old one conked out mid-sermon last Sunday, how that nice Daisy (who makes those picture-perfect sour cherry pies) has gotten an _awful_ haircut but none of her customers have the heart to tell her, how someone accidentally backed a truck into the flowers right outside the town hall, and all the other worthy bits of Smallville news. It doesn't take long for the conversation to wear down to simple, comfortable silence.

Eventually, with the sun glinting strong over the rooflines, Clark takes a breath and says, "I told her."

Martha swiftly looks up at him. "Your lady reporter friend?" When he nods, she asks, "How did she take it?" with a little worried frown.

* * *

_"Oh," she said. Not hurt yet; still shocked. Still preoccupied with processing the revelation._

_"Hello, Lois," he said. The way her Clark would say it: sweet and sincere and naive. His heart in his throat all the while._

_She met his eyes, uncertain, confused. But he knew her; she'd sort through it before she finished her next sentence. "It's been you - since the beginning?"_

_"Yes."_

_The pain bloomed across her face and he saw all his clever rationalizations for a secret identity - honoring his father's commands, giving himself a way to watch the world unseen, keeping his family safe - as the smug foolishness that they were._

_He never should have lied to this woman._

_He wanted to tell her that. He wanted to say, "I love you - that's why I couldn't say goodbye," and he wanted to apologize for being an idiot._

_He just didn't think it would help._

_She took a deep breath. "You should go."_

_He looked at her, trying to catch her gaze, but she had stepped back and was avoiding his. Elsewhere in the house, he heard Jason sigh and flop over in his bed, and even as his whole soul lit to the thought __That's my son__, he accepted the truth, heart heavy: "You're right."_

_But he waited for a long moment, waited for her to do or say something else. He knew her, and he knew that she would never simply accept the revelation and send him on his way. No. There would be fireworks._

_She left him and stalked over to the French doors that faced the lawn, undoing the lock with unsteady fingers, and pushed it open. She stood there, still not looking at him, still not saying anything, still radiating pain. _

_He took the hint. But he couldn't walk past her without reaching out to touch her again. And that – the soft brush of his fingers against the sleeve of her robe - that was what did it._

_Her eyes snapped to his and she said, voice shaking, "You lied to me. You never lie to anyone, but you lied to __me__. And I-" _

_She bit down on the rest of it, lips compressed into a tight line, blinking and looking away again._

_"I'm sorry," he said, because what else could he say? Sorry for so much – including the purchase of his happiness at the cost of Richard's._

_She stared at him, incredulous instead of confused. Anger began a slow, deadly burn behind the tears in her eyes, and her voice stopped shaking. "You need to go."_

_He did._

* * *

"It went better than I thought," Clark admits to Martha. He'd expected a hard slap at least, possibly worse. Shouting for certain. The toned-down reaction he attributes to Jason sleeping nearby, or perhaps the sheer number of revelations she's been forced to accept in the last few days.

Again, a flash of guilt. He never should have lied to her.

"But I'm not going to be her favorite person for a while," he adds. "Either of me. And I'm not sure – I'm not sure if it was the right thing to do."

That earns him a consoling squeeze on his arm. "Of course it was the right thing to do, dear. I'm proud of you for doing it. And don't worry, she'll come around. But Clark – if I can ask – why now? Because of… what happened?"

He clears his throat, feeling like an eight-year-old caught filching a pie off the windowsill. "No. Yes. I... I waited too long already."

She stops, stopping him also by default, and gives him a look exactly like the one he earned as an eight-year-old sneak thief. "Now, what is that supposed to mean?"

"Lois has a son," he said. "Jason. He's five."

His mother tilts her head, frowning at him, waiting to see the connection. Or maybe seeing it already and disapproving.

_Tell the truth, Clark_, he thinks. _'You never lie to anyone'_ - even if it's frankly terrifying to confess this, and all it implies, to his Ma. He takes a breath. "He's my son."

Martha says nothing, but he notices tears in her eyes again, and then a smile breaks over her face. "Clark!" she says with a bubble of laughter, clutching at his arm. "Oh, Clark! Are you sure? How do you know?"

He tells her, as circumspectly as possible given their surroundings. She clucks and gasps sympathetically at all the right parts, but the delighted smile never really disappears.

"That's wonderful news," she says.

He hunches his shoulders a little. "I wish Lois felt the same."

"She will," Martha assures him, beaming. "Now, I want a picture of my grandson for the mantel."

"I'll try to get one," he says, thinking, _A picture is how we got into this mess_. But he smiles despite himself: happy to see his mother happy.

They walk on in pleasant silence, going nowhere. He'll take her back to her hotel room soon, help her pack her suitcase and load it into the taxi, then see her to the airport and her return flight because she wouldn't hear of Clark flying her home himself. Too suspicious, she said; rightly so, although he worries about the cost.

And then it will only be him in Metropolis.

Him, and his son, and Lois.

He listens to the busy city waking and bustling all around him, and he hopes that some of the voices he hears today will be theirs.

**END**


End file.
